john lennon

Q Magazine is a very popular and well known magazine, its mainly known for being versitile and appeals to a wide range of people who listen to the genres of: pop, rock, indie and dance. The main feature of this magazine is the image. Q have used a musical icon John Lennon, to attract the audience as the magazine is celebrating his 70th birthday. Q have chosen to have a black and white image of john Lennon which may symbolise time passing and death, as John Lennon is no longer around anymore. From the text in the corner emphasises the image was taken in 1965 which portrays this was when John Lennon was the most successful and biggest in his music career. As of the simple white background this immediately makes the full attention on the image. The background is clean and not cluttered which allows the features to stand out and be easily readable.
John Lennon’s image is a close up to mid shot and he is staring directly into the camera. This is effective as the buyer feels John’s looking at you which makes you feel involved and attracts you to want to buy the magazine. The white background also makes John Lennon stand out as he is wearing balck so the colours contrast.

Q magazine appeal to a wide range of music fans due to their range of genres. The main target audience for this magazine is men aged between eighteen to thirty as of the colour scheme being white, black and red which are all strong masculine colours. Through out the magazine there are images of men but not images used to attract women such as young good looking men. There are images of men which are aren’t fully clothed or edited ,photo shopped. The images don’t appear to be sexy and lack any feminity which would appeal to a women, therefore this magazine is mainly targeted at men.

The head line which reads “ Lennon at 70” is underneath the masthead in a red font which matches the masthead. Underneath the head line is three lines in a gold font which has emphasis on the words ‘whole, last and unseen’. These words attract the reader as they are encouraging the reader they wouldn’t have seen or read any of the pictures or articles of John Lennon before. These words excite the reader to want to read as they believe they will find out everything about the man which will interest men who aspire or idealise John Lennons lifestyle and his music. Also as John Lennon isn’t alive these words promote that they will inform them about him which they wont be able to hear from John himself but this is the closest thing to him. On the image of John on his black clothing is a white small font. This is effective as the white contrasts against the black clothing , which makes the font stand out.

The masthead of a Q is in the left hand corner which is the same with all over Q magazines, this makes the magazine easily recognisable. The masthead of Q is always in a big font which suggests the magazine has to make up for the magazine only being one letter and not a word. The Q is in a white font with a red square around it. Red has been used as of its strong connotations behind the colour. Red is known for being symbolic for love and passion but also violence and pain. Some people also see red as evil and the colour of the devil.
Q may have used the colour red as it can convey so many messages behind it.
As of the colour of Q being white which contrasts against the red which makes it extremely eye catching.

At the bottom of the cover are three images of different covers readers can purchase. The signifier ‘4’ is in a triangle shape which points towards the images and the text above it. This gives emphasise the reader to look at the images.
The headings of the features along the right hand side are in red, like the other writing on the magazine. This font is in bold as it encourages the readers if they purchase this magazine then they will be getting inside gossip and facts of other artists such as ‘The Kings of Leon’ which also share a similar genre of music such as John Lennon. The readers like this as they feel they are getting more out of the magazine not just facts and pictures of John Lennon. There is also a puff on the page which is a red circle with white text inside of the number 37. This emphasises there are 37 music reviews for the readers of the magazine to look at.

The colour scheme of red, black, white and gold may be used as its has significance to John Lennon. As of red being symbolic of pain , violence, this could be portraying the way John Lennon has died as he was murdered by a fan with a gun.
The cover have used a gold border and the three lines underneath the headline are also in gold. The gold may be symbolic of the wealth and materlistic lifestyle. Lennons facial expression he is pulling , he isn’t showing any emotion of either happy or sad which may be symbolic of he’s happy and sad events which has happened in his life. Also his peaceful expression may portray him being in peace with the world now he isn’t alive any more.